“I do believe Mollie is with someone she knows, probably someone who cares about her,” Rob Tibbetts told ABC News on Monday. “But that relationship was misguided, misinterpreted and went wrong, and I think they’re in a place with Mollie and don’t know how to get themselves out of this horrible situation.”

The rising sophomore at the University of Iowa was last seen jogging through Brooklyn, Iowa, on July 18 and was reported missing the next day when she didn’t show up to her job at a daycare center.

Her distraught father said he’s confident Mollie will be returned home safely — but in order for that to happen, it’s important to give the person who snatched her “the freedom and space to process this, and to get themselves out of trouble before they get into a deeper amount of trouble.”

“I think because they haven’t found Mollie, that Mollie is still someplace, and we can get her home,” Tibbetts said.

When asked what he’d say to anyone who may have taken Mollie, Tibbets said: “You’ve made a mistake. We’ve all made mistakes. Don’t compound this. Work your way through this. Listen to Mollie.”

More than $260,000 has been raised by people across the country as a reward for information leading to the young woman’s safe return.

Her story has “struck a chord” with so many people because “everyone has a daughter or sister or girlfriend like Mollie,” her dad said, adding that her disappearance was “so random and senseless and scary that people have adopted Mollie and her story.”